How economic crises helped the Nazis

Money became worthless in 1923, and mass unemployment after 1929 turned many voters towards the Nazis.

Keep two crises apart. The first was hyperinflation in 1923, when prices rose extremely fast. German money lost so much value that savings and fixed incomes, such as pensions that did not rise with prices, became almost worthless. But people with debts could pay them off cheaply. So the same crisis hit people differently.

Hyperinflation grew out of wartime money problems. It got much worse when French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr, an industrial region. The German government backed passive resistance: workers refused to cooperate with the occupiers. The government kept paying them while production stopped, and it printed more money to cover its spending. A new currency and financial reforms ended hyperinflation in late 1923, and recovery followed.

The second crisis was the Great Depression, from 1929. Germany's recovery had depended partly on foreign loans, especially from the USA. When lending and world trade fell, businesses were hit hard. Firms cut production or closed, and millions lost their jobs. This was a crisis of falling output and unemployment, not a return of the 1923 price rises.

People who lost work, or feared losing it, lost faith in the main parties. Nazi promises of jobs, strong leadership and national recovery became attractive to some voters. Others turned to the Communists or stayed with democratic parties. Hardship gave the Nazis a bigger audience; their campaigning turned that chance into votes.

1923

Hyperinflation: money loses almost all value.

1929

Great Depression brings mass unemployment.

Nazi votes

2.6% in 1928; largest party by July 1932.